Lord of the Wolves

[music]

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The siblings watched the television with awe.

The exact time and date wasn’t important, it’s somewhere between “long ago” and “damn, y’all live like this?”

Before the internet, before a social media machine that choked away the reason of the countless sheep who took part in it, there was the television. Theirs happened to be big enough to cause back problems if it ever needed to be moved, because everything in the mansion was like that. It was their portal to a world that had no restrictions, no bizarre social norms that defined their lives.

It was where they first encountered their hero.

Sometimes, you’re bored and you’re looking for something – anything – to catch your eye as you’re channel surfing. You think the news is boring. You hate the song that’s playing on the MTV because the guitars are too rough and the singer sounds like a dying bear. All the channels that played the fun cartoons had moved on to dull daytime talk shows. You had to find something! Anything!

“Wait, go back!” the sister suddenly shouted.

The brother dutifully did as instructed. Back two channels, and… “There!”

There, on the screen, was our hero. Check that, it’s our hero’s hero.

“Golden” Glen Miller.

In the third epoch of “damn, y’all live like this?”, Miller was one of the biggest stars in wrestling. You’d believe it too with the way he walked and swaggered to the ring, all 6’8” and 300 pounds of fabulous golden hair. They’d never seen a man like this in their lives.

There’s a cadence to professional wrestling that appealed to the younger generation. Larger-than-life characters popping out of the screen with the kind of bombast that couldn’t be accompanied with anything less than fireworks and explosions. Loud, gravely voices shouting about how they were going to beat their enemies within an inch of their lives. The clouds of sweat that flew with every blow and strike. The wild costumes.

It captivated them in a way that all of the dry dance recitals and boring family gatherings never did. As Miller fought his opponent and finally brought him low in the center of the ring, out came the famous Golden Elbow. It might’ve been the coolest thing they’d ever seen.

Pro wrestling was beautiful in that way. Sometimes all it took was a single man with immaculate blonde hair and a body chiseled out of granite using a simple elbow drop to finish his opponents to capture the imaginations of the children that watched them.

These good vibes were fleeting.

Above the television set was the family’s crest - a wolf with a sword between its teeth. Their family was made up of predators, ruthless businessmen that exploited the people and businesses of Louisiana for their own profit until they’d amassed an impossible fortune. They saw themselves kings, the mansion their Camelot.

And when the lord of the wolves walked in the room and saw what they were watching, her immediate reaction was to start screeching at the brother.

“Why are you making your sister watch this filth!?”

The brother could have explained that it was actually the sister’s idea, and that they were watching it together. But he didn’t. Trying to win an argument with their mother was like arguing with a monsoon. At the end of the day, he’d feel wet, cold, unpleasant, and wished he’d brought an umbrella… and he still wouldn’t have “won” because admitting that you’re wrong was not what a wolf did.

They were forbidden from watching said “filth” – not that it stopped either of them. When the wolf was away, the cubs would play.

On that day, the genesis of an idea became ingrained in the brother’s head. One that would define him. One that would cause him to leave a life of empty wealth and pleasure. One that saw him on a road full of pain and misery and frequent disappointment.

He wanted to stand in a ring someday.

He wanted to be the champion.

Just like their hero. *.* Coral Avalon was not naïve enough to believe that everything was fine with the eGG Bandits.

He’d been around this collection of scumbags for the last year as he navigated his way to the Universal title match he’d longed for. It was a combination as divisive as mushrooms in chili, but the crazy part was that it’d worked. Even if Coral took little advantage of the Bandits’ help beyond the cryogenics chamber, he’d rode the Bandit wave all the way to Tropical Turmoil.

Now he was a few days from being undeniable. The best wrestler in the world to never be a world champion may soon become, very simply, the best wrestler in the world.

But the Bandits were not united.

Coral and Jiles weren’t on speaking terms after the last two ReVivals. What Jiles did to Phil Atken at ReVival 50 seemed to be a tipping point, one that left Coral furious at his fellow Bandit. There was yelling. Even screaming.

Since then, Coral hadn’t been welcomed back on the boat. The other Bandits hadn’t been as chatty with them as they’d been. Something was rotten in Denmark, and it wasn’t because it had a connecting flight to Greenland.

That’s why when Coral invited Bobby and Tony to a casual lunch three days before the main event in Lisbon, he decided to cut to the chase.

“So, when does Jiles plan to turn on me?”

The question came up as casually as asking how their day had been. Bobby was midway into eating a sandwich, and when it was asked, he froze mid-bite. A small piece of tomato clung on for dear life at the corner of his mouth. Bobby was instantly nervous. He either knew something, or he knew deep in his heart that what Coral was asking was an inevitability.

“Wh-what do you mean? Bandits stick together!”

The tomato flew off of Bobby’s face as he stammered. Tony rolled his eyes. If it’d just been him being asked, he could lie as easily as he breathed. Bobby was the perfect man for Coral to ask, he knew that Bobby was really, really bad at hiding things. From anyone. Ever.

Coral laughed mirthlessly, “Bobby, I’m not naïve. I know when there’s knives at my back, been at this too long. It’s going to happen. I can feel it. Call it paranoia, whatever, but when things feel like they’re going a little too well… Well, that’s when the rug gets pulled out from under me. The only thing I hadn’t figured out yet is the how.”

“I thought we didn’t talk about that place,” Tony chirped. For a man always grinning, he maintained a much better poker face than his fellow Bandit. Coral would be the first to admit that he’d never had a good read on Tony, grudging respect for the man or not.

Coral let out a sigh, “Look. I won’t begrudge you guys for this. It wouldn’t be the Bandits if there wasn’t banditry, skullduggery, and uh… shenanigannery. So I’ll consider it strictly business as long as, when the deed is done, you only mess with me and not my family.”

There was a pause as Coral tented his fingers, and a small smile formed on his face.

“Of course, there’s always another way.”

Tony exchanged looks with Bobby, “Another way?”

“Hypothetically, let’s say Jiles turns on me. What if, and hear me out here, you stand by my side instead of his when it comes to pass?”

A stunned silence fell over the other two Bandits.

What Coral had suggested sounded ludicrous. Bobby had never not known the Bandits or his relationship with Jiles, and Tony was a card-carrying contrarian.

Coral acknowledged how silly his suggestion was with a laugh, “Yeah, I know, sounds crazy. Hear me out.”

Coral cleared his throat and stood from his seat. A bunch of eyes fell upon him as Coral gave a big speech to his fellow Bandits.

“A long time ago, I sat in a place that was more Denny’s-shaped than this, and I told a bunch of my fellows that we all had something to prove: that we’re not also-rans. We’re all championship-caliber wrestlers, even if we don’t always have the stats or the shiny gold belts to show for it. Bobby, you’re a former world champion, you’re not a joke. Tony, you’re in the Hall of Fame – and I believe you deserve to be there.”

Coral was keenly aware of the number of eyes on him, particularly those of his fellow Bandits, “And I… Well, I don’t know about the two of you, but I didn’t stick with the eGG Bandits just to be someone’s lackey. I stuck around to help make the Bandits better than ever. Me along with them.”

He sighed, and sat back down before he caused more of a scene.

“So the last nine months or so have been a whirlwind. I shared that with both of you. I’ve invited you all into my home. You’ve seen my daughter – hell, Bobby, you were there when my daughter was born. We went to war together. We’ve had each other’s backs. Remember when I tried to teach you guys that wristlock short-arm lariat that Jiles was obsessed with for a couple of weeks? I even taught you the battle cry!”

“Ah, Akata!” Bobby nodded excitedly.

“Emphasis on tried, I guess,” Tony admitted, “Sure didn’t work for me.”

Coral tried not to suggest reaching higher.

“And that all has to mean something to you guys as much as it did me. So, if you’re going to take Jiles’ side and kick me out of the Bandits, then we can settle things right here.” Coral said, slowly standing up from his seat.

A tension rose in the air, especially when both Bobby (with another sandwich at hand) and Tony slowly stood up moments later. For a time, no words were spoken and the only sound that came from any of the three of them was Bobby chewing his sandwich.

For his part, Tony clenched his fists, ready to go. Coral adjusted the tie on his casual suit. Bobby chewed his food a little more slowly than us—ha-ha, just kidding, he’s speed-eating in anxiety. Any second now, things would break bad.

It was Coral who broke the tension.

“Or… we could get on our rides and tear up the streets of Lisbon.”

There was silence.

Then, together, the three of them shared a nod. *.* A picture was worth a thousand words. 

Only a hundred could be spared.

Bobby Dean’s in a cart, and before him on heavy leashes were four mopeds pulling it along like a makeshift chariot. It’s the only way that any moped was capable of sustaining his weight. 

The moped in front of the chariot was manned by an exuberant Coral, who carried Tony on his shoulders. Tony was clearly trying to ghost ride the whip on a motorized scooter, which is not recommended.

In this one moment, it’s the happiest Coral had ever been in being an eGG Bandit.

Even if the inevitable happened and the Bandits betrayed him, they’d always have Lisbon. *.* Most men in Coral Avalon’s position would be folding under the pressure of competing for the biggest prize in professional wrestling today at one of the biggest shows of the year in front of over 60,000 screaming Portuguese PRIMEates. Nearly all of his closest friends were in the city to watch him finally win the big one. Annabelle actively encouraged him to go “fuck up that weird floppy fuckboi”.

Yet Coral remained outwardly as cool and as collected as he’d been leading up to the show. He said all of the right things, exuded confidence, was charming in interviews, and was most importantly not Cancer Jiles.

Inwardly…

…Let’s start by saying that the café appeared normal.

There was a cadence to everyday, ordinary life that Coral was familiar with despite his extraordinary life as an international wrestling star participant. As a Seattle resident, it was as familiar and boring as he desired. Part of him yearned for familiarity and boredom every bit as it yearned for the ring.

Coral sat in the corner, which gave him a good view of everything. Around him, people went about their everyday lives, and there he was living his own.

Of course, he didn’t remember when he got here, nor did he remember this specific café, but it had features from every café he’d ever been to. He saw the one barista with the cute pigtails that he remembered from the third Starbucks in the MGM Grand walk by, the one that laughed at his jokes and flirted with his wife.

It had an outdoor component like the one he visited in Paris the day before he defended the Alias Championship against Zapp Scatino. The kitchen was an island that most of the tables surrounded like most cafés he’d been to, but Coral couldn’t read the menu at all – it was written in either gibberish or Fred Dick’s native language.

The café also had six bathrooms, like an amalgamation of different bathroom placements slammed together into one building. Some of those bathrooms should logically go outside instead of a bathroom, but Coral watched someone go into one and it seemed to go into a bathroom just fine. The bathrooms had symbols for all of the known genders – male, female, non-binary, sheep, toaster, and Ḃ̸͓R̴̫̾İ̷̱Ą̷̏Ǹ̷ͅ.

A few sheep grazed in the café where sheep normally did not graze.

Okay, so the café might have one or two unusual traits about it.

“Do you know why there’s sheep?”

Coral’s attention snapped towards the woman seated across from him. She wasn’t there a second ago. She sat as still as a statue, long black hair covering her face like she was going to crawl out of a television screen after seven days. In fact, Coral only assumed it was a woman based on her feminine voice and frame.

It took him a few moments of stunned silence before he considered the question.

“Because sheep are kind of… cute?” Coral offered.

Almost the instant he answered, he watched two sheep stand up on their hind legs and start pushing each other. Mayhem ensued as they started hoof fighting. Another sheep came in and broke a wooden chair over one of their heads. Another, different sheep broke a beer bottle on the café table – which was weird because Coral thought this café only served coffee – and started stabbing the other sheep with it. Blood and screams and panicked baa’s soon followed.

“…Mostly cute,” Coral amended afterwards.

He couldn’t even be sure if the woman was even looking at him at all.

Two sheep wearing nurse’s caps were loading up a sheep in a stretcher, its wool stained with blood, and were carrying it out of the café. Despite the carnage that’d unfolded, the rest of the sheep not involved in the scuffle were milling around, minding their own business. They were all enjoying their sheep coffee and talking about sheep business and the sheep weather.

Coral blinked in confusion.

“Sheep… are followers, right? And, uh… as a public-facing figure working for an internationally recognized wrestling company, am I supposed to be their shepherd?”

“Think harder.”

The acerbic response came immediately, and Coral winced and looked away as though it’d done physical damage to him. A conservative talk show on the television that Coral had been doing his best to ignore had a cavalcade of talking sheep heads talking about sheep politics and propaganda. Coral didn’t really know what they said, but the condescending baa’s of their heated conversation convinced him that he should be mad about it.

“They say that if you want to go to sleep, you count sheep,” Coral floated, “I never bought into that.”

“Why?”

“Brain’s too active. I start counting and suddenly I’m thinking about the choices I’ve made in my life and whether I’ve made the right ones. Keeps me up sometimes. And I think about the promises I have to ke—“

He stopped.

Promises?

“Wait.”

As his brain worked overtime on the word, she began to transform like she was being animated through rotoscoping. The stringy black hair regressed to something normal and cared for. She had the misfortune of having a similar forehead to his, but hid it better with her longer hair. Her blue eyes were a match for his own. Her appearance was as he remembered it when he last saw her six years ago, before the accident.

Coral couldn’t handle the sight of his sister, and buried his head in his hands, “I must be losing it.”

Her image smiled back at him.

“That’s what happens when you try to turn back time on ice. It catches up.” she said, her voice coming out in a haunting sing-song, “Keep thinking.”

“…I really don’t know.”

“You’ve always been so dense that you need things spelled out for you. How long did it take for you and Annie to get together, again?”

Coral sighed.

“Almost a year despite every signal in the world, I know. I remembered a lot of coincidental meetings that weren’t coincidences once I thought about it. And… a lot of trying hard not to let my last breakup influence me.” He laughed as he remembered the complicated dance of meeting his wife, “God, Annie was probably really frustrated.”

The simulacrum of Emelia built from Coral’s dreams smiled irritably at him. After all, Annabelle wasn’t the only one who’d been frustrated over that long courtship.

“…You know, sheep keep to their business,” Coral said, “They… don’t actually dream of anything more than what they are. No ambitions beyond survival. Domesticated sheep don’t even know where to go without a shepherd.”

“You’re someone who wants to present himself as ‘normal’. You’d like to be one of the sheep, if you could. It’s easier. And Jiles would have you be a sheep. To follow him as blindly as Bobby does, and Tony will. But Coral, he forgets something about you.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re an Avalon.”

Her smile grew unnaturally wide.

“You’ve always been, and always will be… a wolf.”

The moment the words left her, Coral’s gaze fell upon a sweet, innocent sheep minding their own business. It froze in fear upon meeting it as a prey animal might lock eyes with a predator. After a few moments, it ran away in sheer terror. In fact, all of the sheep chose that moment to flee the café, bleating in panic.

Fleeing from an active predator situation.

His eyes fell on the menu again. There was a familiar shape there that he swore wasn’t there before. The crest of the wolf, sword between its teeth, stared back at him.

Coral’s hands gripped the table as he slowly stood up. Instincts were taking over in ways he never knew they could. He never noticed the drool escaping his lips, nor the primal gait he took as he stepped away from the table. Emelia’s phantom was a distant memory now.

All that was left was Coral… and the hunt.

The lord of the wolves, he shall be. *.* Coral woke up the morning of Night Two, and looked around the hotel room with the disoriented gaze of someone not sure if he’s really awake.

His hands burned. His muscles throbbed with the type of adrenaline he usually experienced wrestling. He thought he could still taste raw sheep.

Then he saw Aoi sleeping peacefully in their makeshift crib, an exhausted Annabelle watching over her. He slowly relaxed. The hunt in his dreams was over, now the hunt of his reality can begin later tonight.

“Good morning,” he greeted, “Did you get any sleep?”

“No,” Annabelle yawned, and stretched her arms, “I know it’s your big day, sweetie, but… still. Your turn.”

Coral nodded, rolling out of bed and stumbling his way to his wife and daughter. “Right. Big day. If I do this, I can fulfill both our promises and go out with my head held high.”

Annabelle smiled, “Both promises, huh?”

She knew all about the promises, of course.

“I’m so close, Annie,” Coral said, “If I fail, I won’t get another chance. So I won’t fail. That bell rings, and Jonathan-Christopher’s just prey.”

When Coral left home over two decades ago, his sister covered for his exit. She didn’t have to. She could’ve stopped him. She could’ve told him that he was acting like a fool to throw away his inheritance to chase a dream that he might not be able to start, much less achieve.

She’d let him go with a promise.

Without it, he wouldn’t have met Annabelle. There’d be no Aoi. There wouldn’t be all of the people in Lisbon to see him fulfill his promise. No Blue Rogues. No Crownless Kingdom. Not even Bandits.

All he had to do?

“Go become a champion worthy of our name.”

Thy kingdom come.